A commercially oriented work aimed at ethnic Chinese audiences, Si Tjonat received mixed reviews; box office proceeds are unclear. Although intended as a
serial, no sequel was ever made; the production house, Batavia Motion Picture, closed soon afterwards. However, several works in the same genre as this one were released soon afterwards, including Si Pitoeng, which used the same director and star.

Plot

Tjonat, a
Sundanese youth, kills his friend and escapes to Batavia (now
Jakarta), the capital of the
Dutch East Indies, where he finds work with a Dutch man. Tjonat soon robs the man of his wealth and seduces his mistress (njai), then leaves the household to live the life of a bandit. When he asks Lie Gouw Nio (Ku Fung May), the daughter of a
peranakan Chinese farmer named Lie A Tjip, to be his lover, she refuses. Enraged, Tjonat kidnaps her, but Lie is rescued by her fiancé, Thio Sing Sang (Herman Sim), who is well-trained in martial arts.[1]